Sneakers -- a surprisingly prescient movie

[Staph]

I just finished watching (for the umpteenth time) a 1992 movie called Sneakers, with Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, Dan Ackroyd, and Ben Kingsley. It's the story of a security firm run by a 1960s radical (Redford), who comes to possess a computer chip that can decrypt any encryption formula. The primary bad guy is the head of a shadowy company associated with organized crime, but the secondary bad guys are the NSA. This chip won't work with encryption codes used within the former Soviet Union, so the script states that the NSA wants it for domestic spying, against other agencies and against ordinary Americans.

I remember seeing this movie in the summer of 1992, and enjoying it as a computer geek sort of thriller (and enjoying it simply because it starred Robert Redford). Viewing it 14 years later, in this springtime of the war on terror and the loss of civil rights, I wonder what inspired the writers? I had scarcely heard of the NSA at the end of GHW Bush's first term. The three writers, Phil Alden Robinson, Lawrence Lasker, and Walter F. Parkes, have written very little since then, though Robinson has done some direction (including an episode of Band of Brothers) and Parkes is busy as a producer.

Art can be very influential, appealing to both the heart and the head. I wish that there were other films and TV shows today that had the same sort of subtle education. Don't beat them over the head -- Uncle Tom's Cabin and Huckleberry Finn were recognized as good stories as well as agents of propaganda. We need those kind of stories if we are ever to break the conservative news media's grip on the minds of the easily influenced. Where are our great (and popular) writers?

[diamondsndust]

1. I just watched it too...

I noticed a LOT of older movies this weekend that made references to government spying, corruption, etc..most of it older movies which seemed almost prophetic.

just my observance..

[Greylyn58]

2. I just finished watching this movie too

and was having similar thoughts. I've seen the movie multiple times and like you have enjoyed it every time I have.

With the NSA currently in the news, I thought it was interesting that this movie was being show on tv just now.

Co-inki-dink?? I think not.

Just as "All the Presidents Men" is in some ways relevant to the current mis-administration(they seem to have take a page from Nixon's playbook and are imploding just like them). This movie is erie in its talk of domestic spying on the government and the country.

Too bad we can't do what the "hero's" of the movie did at the end to the GOP! :evilgrin:

[Missy M]

4. It is a good movie and another one that always gives me...

the chills is "Enemy of the State" with Will Smith. The other movies relevant to the current administration are "Three Days of the Condor" (oil) and "The Pelican Brief" (oil) those are two of my favorites.

[Greylyn58]

8. I haven't seen Enemy of the State yet

but Three Days of the Condor is very good also and very relevant.

[Swamp Rat]

3. Sometimes I feel like I live in "Brazil"

the movie.



I may move back to the real Brazil to get away from this one.

[MiniMe]

5. "Too many secrets"

I remember that movie too. Loved it. I think it had River Phoenix is in it too. You're right, very prescient.

[shadowknows69]

6. I forgot about the plot to that one

and it's a great flick. thanks for reminding us :applause:

[titoresque]

7. Passsssport n/t

[displacedtexan]

9. I pretty much have that film memorized.

"I leave message on machine, but you do not call."